New Brunswick, NJ Business Licensing & Operations: Massage Establishments (2026)

Chapter 5.56 treats massage establishments as a business affecting the public health, safety and general welfare. Section 5.56.040 bars any massage establishment from operating without a permit, and applications go to the city clerk with a fee of four hundred dollars ($400.00) for an initial license and two hundred fifty dollars ($250.00) for each annual renewal. The application states the exact nature of the massage, the place of business and its facilities. Every applicant, each partner, each officer or director of a corporate applicant and each stockholder holding more than ten (10) percent must give name and aliases, proof of age eighteen (18), residential addresses for five years, employment history, license history, convictions within the past ten (10) years, fingerprints, a photograph, a tax identification number, the funding source, and the certified massage practitioner's diploma.

Practitioners need their own permit under section 5.56.050: $250.00 initially and $150.00 for each renewal. Under section 5.56.060 the police chief denies or revokes a permit after notice and hearing for a conviction within ten years of an indecency, obscenity, sexual, or drug offense under N.J.S.A. 2C:1-1 et seq., or for a false statement. Denial or revocation can be appealed to the city council within thirty (30) days. Section 5.56.070 requires sanitary conditions, posted prices, clean nontransparent garments and towels, and bars any touching of the genital area.

A business with one massage practitioner and one massage room is exempt from the establishment license but not the practitioner permit, and inspections run semiannually.